54 Outs to Freedom: Padres vs. Cubs NL Wild Card Preview

A Padres-Cubs NL Wild Card Series ought to delight people who are 10 to 15 years older than I am; the Cubs were actually San Diego’s first playoff opponent, all the way back in 1984. Neither of those teams had too much staying power, but surely you’ve heard about Rick Sutcliffe becoming the greatest midseason trade acquisition ever, or the Iron Claw-like litany of personal tragedies that befell members of that Padres team later on. Tony Gwynn led a late comeback off Sutcliffe in the decisive game, and the Padres won the first pennant in franchise history.

The winner of this series will have quite a bit more work to do before it can start thinking about a World Series berth. Both of these teams have been locked into Wild Card berths but locked out of a division title for quite some time, which means they’ve flown under the radar to some extent down the stretch.

In the Cubs’ case, that lack of attention his probably been a blessing. On paper, this is a highly dangerous team, with a legitimate five-man-deep rotation, a bullpen that’s benefited from some midseason reinforcements, and best-in-the-league up-the-middle defense. It’d be nice if the Cubs had a true monster power threat, but they do have six players who hit between 22 and 34 home runs, and plenty of dudes like Ian Happ, Kyle Tucker, and Seiya Suzuki, who make you go, “Dang, that guy can flat-out hit.”

The on-the-ground view of the Cubs, as currently constituted, is quite ambivalent in comparison with that theoretical ideal. Their best position player, Tucker, tried to play through a broken finger for almost three months. When he finally went on the IL in early September, it was for a calf injury, from which he only returned for the final series against the Cardinals. A healthy Tucker is a monster two-way player who can turn a series on his own, but I’ve seen the Mothman more recently than a healthy Tucker.

Speaking of monster two-way players, this series is going to be a national coming-out party for Pete Crow-Armstrong. PCA is, for my money, the most exciting all-around athlete in the league. He has 30-homer pop and 80-grade speed. He powers up in big moments and he plays center field like Nightcrawler. He has the greatest “Holy crap, did you see that?” potential of any player in a series that is also going to involve Fernando Tatis Jr. — I can think of few higher compliments.

He’s also hitting .185/.236/.295 since August 1.

That the Cubs are in this position after losing no. 1 starter Justin Steele is a huge credit to his replacement, veteran left-hander Matthew Boyd. For most of the season, Boyd was a genuine Cy Young contender. Despite possessing only pedestrian velocity, Boyd’s fastball has more arm-side run than just about any other starter’s in baseball. On July 22, Boyd blanked the Royals over the first seven innings of a 6-0 win.

That effort extended Boyd’s scoreless streak to 23 2/3 innings over three and a half starts, improved his record to 11-3, and lowered his ERA to 2.20. In 11 starts since, Boyd is 3-5 with a 5.16 ERA.

That wouldn’t be such a great cause for concern ordinarily, because Boyd’s stylistic opposite — rookie right-hander Cade Horton — was pitching like a postseason ace. Until he left his last regular-season start with soreness in his back, which imaging revealed to be coming from a broken rib. The working theory is that Horton, who’d recently been ill, broke his rib while coughing.

There are certainly more serious and more painful injuries a pitcher can suffer, and Horton hopes to take part in the NLDS if the Cubs advance. But there is a specific Cronenbergian body horror to this one. Struggling so badly to breathe that one’s body tears itself apart from the inside.

Losing Horton might be more palatable if Shota Imanaga’s issues with the long ball hadn’t become especially acute of late. Imanaga has allowed at least one home run in his past nine starts and in 11 of his past 12. In total, that’s 20 dingers in just 69 2/3 innings. Shohei Ohtani has homered once every 13.4 plate appearances. Imanaga’s opponents in his last 12 starts have homered once every 13.8 PA. It’s not what you want in a playoff series at Wrigley Field.

So yeah, recent headlines about the Cubs have not been great, and that’s leaving aside the headlines about what we’ll call (in as diplomatic a tone as I can manage) “the Matt Shaw-Charlie Kirk stuff.” After playing nearly .600 ball in the first half, Chicago has gone just 35-31 since the break, and while the overall talent of this team remains championship-caliber, the stretch run has been bumpy to say the least.

The Padres have been pretty consistent over the course of this season, at least as a team. The composition of that team, however, has changed quite a bit. San Diego was extremely active at the deadline, bringing in all-world closer Mason Miller, most notably, along with slugging DH Ryan O’Hearn, outfielder Ramón Laureano, catcher Freddy Fermin, and starters JP Sears and Nestor Cortes.

Beyond Miller and O’Hearn, the impact of those additions is going to be pretty minimal for this series. Sears spent almost all of September in the minors and will probably not participate in the Wild Card series. Cortes is hurt. I thought Laureano could be the bargain of the deadline, a streaky two-way outfield spark plug, kind of like what Harrison Bader has been to the Phillies. Laureano has been good for the Padres (.269/.323/.489 in 50 games), but he broke his finger a week ago, and unlike Tucker, he’s not going to close his eyes and hope it goes away.

Laureano’s injury leaves Gavin Sheets as the Padres’ primary left fielder, and opens a hole for a right-handed position player that’s apparently being filled by Jose Iglesias. (Iglesias, who was possessed by the sprit of Eddie Collins last year, has reverted to his previous form and hit .229/.298/.294 in the regular season.)

That brings me to my major point of concern about the Padres. I don’t know what shape Tucker’s in, and PCA and Carson Kelly (151 wRC+ in the first half, 69 wRC+ in the second half) are ice cold. But the Cubs lineup goes nine deep, and their best nine players will at least be physically present for this series against San Diego.

The same could not be said for the Padres lineup. Tatis, Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill have all had slightly disappointing seasons from a statistical standpoint, but they’re all stars. Jake Cronenworth is a tough out, and so is O’Hearn. Xander Bogaerts has been OK this year. Sheets’ bat isn’t good enough to be worth the appalling outfield defense he brings with him, and with Laureano hurt, I don’t know who San Diego’s next-best option is. Nevertheless, Sheets posted a .320 on-base percentage with 19 home runs this season, so it could be worse.

That leaves two lineup spots that worry me. The easier one of the two is catcher. In 41 games with the Padres, Fermin is hitting .252/.287/.350, for a wRC+ of 81, and 0.6 WAR. The most unkind true thing I can say about the Padres catching situation is that Fermin’s post-trade deadline performance is a big upgrade on what the team was working with previously.

This is an honest-to-God hole in the lineup, the kind of which will at least be an inconvenience when your postseason could last as little as 54 outs.

The other problem is Luis Arraez. Just two years ago I wrote, in a preview of the 2023 Wild Card Series between the Phillies and Marlins, that Arraez’s superhuman bat-to-ball ability could allow him to put his team on his back, when contact might be hard to come by against the likes of Zack Wheeler and Jeff Hoffman.

How things have changed.

There’s been no shortage of ink spilled here about the incongruity between Arraez’s unique (and extremely fun) contact ability and the limitations of a first baseman who never walks, doesn’t run well, doesn’t play good defense, and hits a lot of grounders. Two years ago, when Arraez was hitting in the .350s, he overcame those limitations to be an All Star-caliber player. But his average doesn’t have to drop much — he hit .292 this year — to be a liability.

Considering how tough it can be to make contact in the postseason, there’s absolutely a time and place for Arraez on the roster. In a key spot when you need a baserunner against a closer with a 40% strikeout rate, his ability to put the ball in play is a huge weapon. But Arraez’s limitations are simply too great for him to be a plus everyday player on a team with World Series aspirations.

The Padres rotation is good, but a little high-variance. Manager Mike Shildt has heavily insinuated that Nick Pivetta will start Game 1, which would make him the first Canadian pitcher to start Game 1 of a playoff series since Cal Quantrill in the 2022 ALDS. (Three other Canadians have made a Game 1 start: James Paxton for the Yankees in 2019, Ryan Dempster for the Cubs in 2008, and Jeff Francis three times for the Rockies in 2007.)

Pivetta has been terrific this season, with a 2.87 ERA in 31 starts. But while he has a mystifying ability to get hitters to take fastballs right down the middle, he’s gotten away with quite a bit of hard contact this year. Among the 127 pitchers who have thrown 100 innings this year, Pivetta is 19th in ERA but 52nd in xERA.

Shildt is playing his cards closer to his vest with his Game 2 and 3 starters, with Yu Darvish, Michael King, Randy Vásquez, and Dylan Cease in the running. Until told otherwise, I’ll assume Shildt will use Cease in Game 2 and King in Game 3, because that’s what I’d do.

Cease has as high an upside as any pitcher in the playoff bracket; he was third among qualified starters in strikeout rate this year. But when things start to come unglued for Cease, they can come unglued fast. Opponents hit .215 off Cease with the bases empty this year, and .275 with runners on. He also walked three or more batters in 13 of his 32 starts. Among pitchers likely to appear in the playoffs this year, only Gavin Williams has more three-walk starts.

King had that godlike Wild Card series start against Atlanta last year — seven scoreless innings, five hits, 12 strikeouts.

But he has been up and down in 2025, with “down” in this case meaning “injured.” A nerve issue sidelined King from mid-May to early August. Two innings into his first start back he tweaked his knee and spent another month on the sidelines. Since returning three weeks ago, he has been inconsistent: eight earned runs and four homers in three innings against the Mets on Sept. 16, then five scoreless innings against the White Sox five days later.

I’d say the Cubs lineup is more talented than that of the Padres from top to bottom, with a higher ceiling but much more potential for disaster. And the reverse is true of their respective starting rotations.

Which leaves two units where I do think there’s a clear difference: Defense and the bullpen.

Over the course of a full season, defense becomes this ineffable thing. In order to fully grasp it, to understand the difference between a player who dives for a ball because he’s compensating for poor range and a player who dives for a ball nobody else could reach, you’d have to watch so much of one team there wouldn’t be enough time to watch the other 29.

Therefore, I’m outsourcing that responsibility to Statcast’s Fielding Run Value, which rates the Cubs as the second-best defensive team in the league and the Padres 17th, with a difference of 40 runs between them.

Certainly, the Padres have some standout defenders, most notably Tatis. But they also have some average defenders, and in Sheets and Arraez, a couple real black holes. Even Machado graded out slightly below average this year, which is a bit jarring. The young Machado was among the best defensive third basemen I’ve ever seen, regardless of era, but he’s 33 years old now, and I suppose all things end.

The Cubs, on the other hand, have Hoerner, who led all second basemen in FRV. They have Crow-Armstrong, who was the second-best defensive center fielder behind Boston’s Ceddanne Rafaela, and the third-best defender at any position. They also have Swanson, whose numbers were merely above average this year, but whose reputation is far better.

What they don’t have is a bad defender anywhere. Only two Cubs finished even a single run below average in 200 or more innings on defense: Suzuki, who’s a DH most of the time, and Michael Busch, who was minus-2 in almost 1,200 games at first base.

Over a two- or three-game series, defense might not matter in the slightest. But I will say that if it does end up mattering, it will be as conspicuous in a short series as it is mundane over the regular season. The series could hinge on a Padres fielder dropping a critical fly ball or Crow-Armstrong robbing a home run, and if it does, we’ll see it on highlight reels for the rest of the playoffs at least.

The other area where I see real separation is the bullpen.

The Chicago bullpen is probably a little better than these numbers indicate, as its relievers had some really ugly low-leverage churn over the course of the season, and the Ryan Pressly experiment is mercifully over. Of the Cubs’ top five relievers by WAR this season, only Daniel Palencia has been with the club more than 10 months. Andrew Kittredge and Drew Pomeranz joined the team midseason.

I’ve seen worse bullpens get red hot and stay that way through the entire month of October. But the Padres are just on another level. Just take the last four guys.

That’s awesome. And this is the Padres bullpen without Jason Adam, whose thigh exploded on the mound earlier this month.

Again, the difference between regular season and playoffs matters a lot here. Over the regular season, a good bullpen — even one as good and as deep as San Diego’s — can only have so much utility.

But the Padres pen will come into this series well-rested. These four pitchers lined up to close out the last four innings of Saturday’s 5-1 win over Arizona. They combined to allow only one of the 13 runners they faced to reach base, and they struck out eight of the other 12. None of them pitched on Sunday, so they’ll enter Game 1 all on three days’ rest.

The Padres can use all four of their top relievers on back-to-back days, and if there’s a must-win Game 3 with a rest day on the other side, you’d better believe Shildt will go back to the well again. You could argue that the Padres have the four best relievers in this series, and those four relievers could combine to throw almost half of their team’s innings if need be.

ZiPS sees this series as pretty even, and in general I’m inclined to agree.

There are just so many moving parts here. So many questions about who’s healthy, and who’s slumping, and whether that will carry over to the playoffs. So many transcendent players capable of turning a series on their own — I’d argue that there are more such players in this series than in any other, and even if you disagree, they’re more evenly distributed here than in, say, Dodgers-Reds.

It wouldn’t shock me if either one of these teams went deep into October, but my prediction is that the Padres bullpen makes the difference here. Four elite relievers can dominate a best-of-three series to a degree that honestly warps the competitive form of playoff baseball. As pronounced as that effect can be in a best-of-seven series, or with merely three elite relievers, it’s even more so here. And that’s too much to ignore.